6.50 pm – Why so many spoiled ballots? 1.2 million so far? Protest or mistake?

6.45 pm – From Bangkok Pundit: for party vote Puea Thai at 9,435,854 or 44.62% to Dems 8,202,133 or38.78% out of 21,148,147 votes cast. PT increasing in % each update.

6:35 pm – For a while commentators were predicting a much narrower Pheua Thai victory than the exit polls predicted. But in the last half hour or so, as more votes are counted, the Pheua Thai lead seems to be opening up a little more.

Professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak said that a margin of 80 to 100 seats should give Puea Thai an unassailable victory. If they won over 250 seats it would be a clear mandate, while more than 280 seats could be considered a landslide. “If they win at all it’s a big statement,” he added. “[It means] the ideas and policies that made [Thaksin’s] original Thai Rak Thai party so electable are unstoppable and indestructible … This is a party that has been dissolved twice; its leading politicians have been banned twice; it’s being led by a deposed exile and former prime minister a six-hour flight away.” He said that a landslide would be “not just any landslide – it would mean we have a truly new country. Whether people accept that will determine how much pain and grief we have to go through.”

5:57 pm – A good picture from Simon Roughneen at Pheua Thai headquarters.

5:50 pm – Plenty of commentators on Twitter predicting Pheua Thai will get closer to 250 than to 300.

5:45 pm – The national [party list] count so far. Looks pretty close, but we are told that there is an over-representation of results from the south.

5:30 pm – Important point made by Jon Ungphakorn: “Whats so concerning about Thai MS media is the readiness to appease whoever gets into power like Chinese media after change of leadership”.

5:24 pm – Current official figures may be tilted towards Bangkok and the southern provinces. The exit polls provide one story. The formal vote count seems to be giving another. We watch-and-wait for more numbers from across the country.

Democrat’s spokesman Dr Buranat Samutarak said the party is waiting for official results of the general election. “At the moment, the party could not comment on the exit poll as we are now waiting for the official results,” he said. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva will talk to people in the evening, he said. Supporters of Democrat Party gathering at the party headquarter are still in high hope. They were heard shouting “Democrat, fight, fight.”

3:51 pm – Some of the #Thaielection Twitter coverage makes for very interesting reading. Saksith reckons “[t]his election day looks like it’s going to be the day of clear winners and clear losers!”

3:30 pm – In 2005 Thaksin won 375 to the Democrats 96 and 29 to minor parties. This won’t be as dramatic, but it doesn’t look like the coup, a new constitution, two party disolutions and scores of political bannings have damaged his electoral brand very much.

3:21 pm – All of the numbers we are seeing seem to be pointing to a very strong Pheua Thai showing. Current indications suggest Thailand will see a new government by the end of the night, with a resounding victory for (Prime Minister?) Yingluck Shinawatra and her Red Shirt allies.

3:01 pm – ABAC has published its exit poll. Early indications will put smiles on Pheua Thai faces. Word to New Mandala is that it predicts 313 to Pheua Thai; 153 to the Democrats. As our well-informed informant says “wow”.

3:00 pm – Polls have closed around the Kingdom of Thailand.

3:00 pm – Notes from Thailand South by Marc Askew:

A few notes from sources in the mid-south and border provinces, as of “the night of the howling dogs” (kheun ma horn – night before election day).

CONSTITUENCIES TO WATCH IN THE “DEMOCRAT SOUTH”

Several former Democrat strongholds in Songkhla/Satun are in jeopardy, as follows:

Satun Constituency 1 is being contested by Thanin Jaisamut, former Democrat MP who swtiched to Chart Thai Pattana after Suthep Theuaksuban allocated him a low ranking on the Democrat’s party List. He has a strong local following in Satun, and two days ago Sanan Kachornparsart, CTP heaveyweight, visited the constituency to add weight to Thanin’s campaign, and was greeted enthusiastically.

In Songkhla’s Constituency 7, the Pheu Thai candidate is Asawin Suwit, son of a widely-respected former Muslim Democrat MP (Wichit Suwit) and fortmerly Deputy Presdient of the Province Administrative Organization. Asawin’s elder brother Naracha had succeeded his father as MP for Constituency 8 in the 2005 Democrat landside victory. However, he was never a satisfactory local member and was removed as candidate for the 2011 election by the Democrat Party candidate committee of Songkhla, which chose Surin Panare to contest the constituency. The Suwit family has now turned against the Democrats. Aswin has a strong following in Constituency &, which comporises the Muslim-majority districts of Nathawi, Sadao and Saba Yoi.

Aswin’s Democrat opponent is the standing member Sirichok Sopha, a parliamentary firebrand (and close associate of PM Apbhist) who contributed to the bringing down of the Thaksin government. However, he is
not locally-born, and people in the district comnplain that he is rarely in the constituency. Thgis author’s informants empohasize that in an effort to contest the force of Aswin’s popularity among local Muslims, DP
vote canvassers are ditributing large sums of money to voters. This is a standard tactic of the DP is hotly contested districts. In response, Aswin’s team, including his father, have distributed leaflets throughout
the constitutency condemning vote selling as a sin against Allah.

CHUWIT AND THE NO-VOTE IN HAT YAI

Voters in Constituency 2 of Songkhla (encompassing the city of Hat Yai) are reportedly dissillusioned with the Democrat Party for replacing the lacklustre local Sino Thaiu MP Larpsak Laparotakit with his son, who has no political experience. Many Democrat voters in the city are reportedly going to excercise a “no-vote” in protest. More interestlingly is that the mercurial Chuwit Kamonlawisit (The Love Thai Party)is favoured by voters for selection in the Party List vote. Chuwit’s popularity is also shared among numerous Democrat voters in Nakhon Sri Thammarat.

VOTE-BUYING IN THE THREE PROVINCES

Vote camvassers have been actively distributing cash for votes in the three provinces, as is the extablished custom. In Pattani, local informants report that Pheu Thai and Bhumjai Thai have been distributing
500 baht per individual. In Narathiwat Province, in one tough contest between the Mathuphum Party and the Democrats, the amount being distributed to voters is 1,000 baht per head.

It seems some people were asleep during the whole election campaign. The democrats hammered this very topic, the burning of central world, in their humble efforts to be taken seriously. It’s impossible that the electorate just somehow forgot about it, it just didn’t resonnate. Or in another alternate head space maybe the electorate vote to burn it down.

It isn’t over yet. As the count goes on, so the lead PT had (according to some exit polls) is steadily reducing. Last estimate I saw was PT 254. In a few hours that may reduce further. If under 250 and then the fun and games really begin. Red cards, etc.

Maybe the gist of what happened last year is something else. People are not convinced by the official spin and are suspicious about it.

Not only that but maybe people are more concerned about 92 dead bodies rather than some bricks and mortar.

Until the last week nor Abhisit nor Suthep showed a shred of remorse. Their excuse was if they did it would be like admitting it was their doing.

But how can we believe things like Suthep saying the military did not attack but, “people ran into the bullets”?

Or that the so-called men in black shot the red shirts and military and then, although estimated to be 400 slipped into the shadows and disappeared forever while surrounded by 30,000 well-armed soldiers.

Like Kennedy said “you can fool all of the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all the time. But you cannot fool all the people all of the time”.

There was a time when the flow of information was 100% controlled by the state and people could be led to believe any sort of nonsense. But times have changed. People can get information from elsewhere now and have started to see things from various points of view.

Robald #7 Maybe your right, people have just switched off from the main stream media channels and are just attracted to media which supports their view point. States are definately losing their control over propaganda. The voters have certainly given the disconnect with reality a good kick.

Hmmm. The invalid vote count is creeping towards 10% of the total- not including “No” votes. There were 2-5% invalid votes in the 2007 elections. I personally saw a couple of misplaced PT selections on the infamous party-list ballot sheet during counting today, and a lot of blank ballots as well, but nothing on this scale.

Really does look as though something fishy is going on.
These “spoiled ballots” over 1 million look like the result of the Election Commission trying to rig the election by misrepresenting the PT logo. And now these bizarre low turn out figures in Red heartlland. Looks like trouble brewing.

Abhisit has declared his party has lost the election and congratulated Yingluck as the next PM. However, his party will still oppose any amnesty to the former PM Thaksin as the opposition in the parliament!

Does the low no-vote signal the end of PAD? It was always clear that they had very little electoral pull.

Do we know what the ‘no vote’ got. If it’s still around 3-4%, although it’s nothing for the PAD to crow about, it does represent damage to the two main parties.

For the Democrats it’s vote lost that would have put them a bit closer to Phue Thai. Maybe even have got them a couple more Bangkok constituencies. (Glad to see where I live stayed Democrat.)

For Phue Thai it’s shows there is still a significant size of the group of people who may not accept any amnesty plan. Maybe even people who would be in the streets if this happens. Then again the PAD the leadership could accept the amnesty plan for themselves, but somehow I don’t think this is on the cards.

In my life I seen all sorts of people I didn’t like win elections. From Heath, Thatcher and Blair in the UK, Nixon, Reagan and both the Bushes in the US, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines three times, Lee, his protege and family in Singapore too many times, Berlusconi in Italy and the likes of Howard in Australia.

The lower Isan shows more reports of vote-buying than other parts of the country. Does this signify the fierce competition between PT and BJT in that area? In constituencies with close races, vote-buying would make more of a difference than in the clear-cut constituencies of Upper Isan or the South for example.